On Friday evening, NASA's Minotaur V rocket blasted off from its launchpad at a spaceport in Virginia, carrying the LADEE spacecraft on the first leg of its trip from Earth to the moon. The scene that resulted was fiery. It was inspiring. It was epic.
It was also, however, not without its casualties.
The picture above, captured on Friday by one of the remote cameras NASA had set up for the big launch, captured a creature that found itself, alas, caught in the crossfire of humanity's drive to explore: a frog. A very unfortunate frog. Launch pads, you see, are generally built near marshes and ponds whose water can absorb the flames of a rocket's ignition. And this little guy was in the wrong place at the very, very wrong time.
Universe Today's Nancy Atkinson, who confirmed the veracity of the froggy photo, attributes the frog's Vetruvian Man-style pose to the animal's being startled by the sudden blast. I hope that was the case, as opposed to the alternate explanation: that the creature was blasted away from Earth by the force of a human-created explosion. Either way, Atkinson notes, "we cannot say with any certainty that no frog was harmed in the making of this picture." But rest assured, its sacrifice would not be in vain: This was one small step for a frog, but one giant leap for frogkind.
Hat tip Chris Heller.
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